Saturday, September 3, 2016

The Bungalow - A Look at the Outside

"The Bungalow" - that's what I'm calling our new house. Not very original, I know, since it actually is a bungalow. Maybe Gardner's Circus or the Gardner Zoo would be more appropriate. At any rate, I think I'll stick with "The Bungalow".

I've never given you a good look at the outside so I decided that today was the day.

This is the front view of the house. The detached garage is ours. You'll notice there's a house
very close on the left. The two homes were owned by the same family. They lived in
one and rented the other. We don't love that about the house but it wasn't a deal breaker.
There was originally several awnings on the house, including on the front porch, but we
removed those. They helped keep some of the rooms cooler but they blocked too
much of the view. You might notice that the house and garage both have new roofs. The seller
put those on the house before we closed.

This is the main entrance to the house. However, we keep the porch door
locked so friends and family use the side door. David is working right now on this
area of the house to make it prettier. He also plans to make this corner a
pretty garden spot. You might notice the a/c unit. The house doesn't currently
have central air. We've been using this window unit since we moved in in mid-July and
it's working adequately.

The house faces the south and the "front door" is on the east. This is the west side of the porch.

This is the west side of the house. There's not a lot of room between our house and the
driveway of the house next to us. These aren't "normal" houses in that the entrances are on
the front and back. The entrances are on the sides! Our neighbor's front door and back
door are on the side and our front and side doors are on the side. We also have two back doors.
The fence is new. David built a farm style fence around the perimeter of the yard.
The fence section in the front areas consists of three horizontal wood pieces and
no fencing. The sections in the back have the same three horizontal pieces but
also have cattle fencing to keep the kids and dog in. The fencing on the west side,
between us and our neighbor, are taller. We were originally planning to put another
skinny piece of wood between each of the wider boards, for privacy, but we may
skip that step after all.

This is the side entrance - same side as the front entrance. It had a
wrought iron railing when we purchased it but we removed it so we
could back the moving truck up to this door and move furniture in. It
worked great. This entrance goes into the family room.

This section is to the right of the side entrance. The fence gives us privacy when
we're int he back yard. It goes from the house to the garage with a gate over on the right side.
This will also eventually be a garden area.
We have a smaller a/c unit that we use when needed. It's located in the kitchen.

This is the two car detached garage. It has a loft upstairs for additional storage.
It has electricity but isn't heated or cooled. When we first moved in, the
garage leaked because of grading issues. We fixed that when we did the fence
and now the leaking problem is solved. That unfenced section where Lucy is
will eventually be a gate. Now it just has wire to keep her in.

This area is to the right side of the driveway and is part of the front-side yard.

Side view of the house and garage. We aren't parking in the garage right
now because it's full of construction stuff and it doesn't have garage door
openers yet. We'll start parking in there when the weather cools off. The
garage has some extra room at the end that will give David a small shop area.

This is the back of the house. The fence on the right is our property line. The garage is
to the left. We're going to build a deck where those chairs are.

This is the back yard - on the east side of the yard. The fence is our
property line.

The tree house David built for the grandkids. It currently requires one of his ladders to
get up there but he's going to build a permanent ladder when he gets a chance. In the
meantime, the kids love it!

And that's the end of the tour. In a couple of days I'll give you a tour of the inside. Let me know if you have any questions.